Jump (23 page)

Chapter Sixty-four

“That will never work.”

Gail pulled the cookie sheet from the oven and surveyed the damage. The sugar cookies should have been the easiest to bake, but the oven was almost as old as she was, and the temperature fluctuated wildly from one rack to the next. The perfectly round cookies had risen uniformly in the middle, but some had brown edges. That would never do, not for company.

Shaking her head in disgust, Gail strode purposefully over to the garbage can, stomped the foot pedal and used her spatula to scrape the cookies into the trash.

“Should have used the top rack.”

Grabbing a fresh cookie sheet, she painstakingly doled out equivalent masses of dough, her wrist as supple as a velvet rope. When she had finished the tray was covered by a perfectly symmetrical six-by-five matrix of sugar and flour.

“Much better,” she said to her dead cat Simone.

Simone didn’t answer, since she’d been buried more than five years ago, but she was still very much alive whenever Gail was in her kitchen.

Simone had lived with Gail long enough—almost eight years—for them to strike up quite a relationship. Like most relationships with cats, it was almost entirely on the cat’s terms. Simone would shower Gail with affection by rubbing against her legs and shedding on her slacks, her couch, her bed. Cajole her with insistent purrs, chastise her with disapproving glances, berate her when she came home late. Once she had even demonstrated her great loyalty by leaving a present for Gail at the doorstop, a gray dormouse with a broken neck.

But Simone was an excellent listener, so it seemed only fair Gail should give Simone something in return.

Gail would talk nonstop to Simone while she baked, and in exchange Simone was given small tastes of the cookie batter. Depending on how Simone reacted, Gail knew if she was onto something. Gail remembered once adding some extra vanilla into a tollhouse recipe, then turning her back just long enough to check the oven. By the time she came back to add the chocolate chips half the batter was gone, Simone’s whiskers sticking together. Gail whipped up another batch immediately and never went back to the original recipe.

It broke her heart when that cat died. For the longest time, Gail blamed herself. Maybe she should have been more careful about what she fed her. Taken her for walks. Not had her neutered. Brushed her more regularly. But then Gail got tired of feeling guilty and blamed the vet.

She got old
, the vet said by way of explanation, as if the cat’s age had been some kind of curse, a death spell of numerology. Not something you say to an old lady.

Then he chided her for feeding the cat cookie dough, saying it was bad for the cat’s metabolism. Clogged the arteries, weakened the heart. The whole time, Gail felt like the vet was talking about her and not her cat, describing a time bomb that was set to explode somewhere in her
old
body. What a smug little prick he was, probably never let his kids have dessert. Looked like a teetotaler, too.

But Gail thanked him for his trouble, left the cookies she had baked, and silently prayed that his liver would explode. She kept that thought between her and the Almighty, which was easy because she was an agnostic, but the moral victory was hers.
Always be gracious
, her mother had said,
even when they treat you like dirt
. Even in grief, Gail was a class act.

But she never got another cat, even when the ASPCA came calling. She gave them money and a small bag of cookies but asked them to leave her alone.

She still talked to Simone whenever she baked, and tonight she was baking up a storm. She was expecting company. Eight, maybe ten people at least. It would take at least eight hours of baking to finish all the cookies she had planned.

She flicked on the oven light, checked the color, then took a quick inventory of her supplies. Ingredients were laid out across the counter in near-military formation. The standard bag of flour, a box of brown sugar, baking soda. A colorful assortment of bottles—flavors like vanilla and nutmeg, food coloring, other extracts designed to linger on the palette and compel even the most disciplined dieter to reach back into the jar for
just one more
. Bags of chocolate chips—semisweet—enough to make cookies till the end of time.

Gail’s number one rule,
don’t be stingy with the chocolate
.

Her eyes wandered toward the end of the counter where the liqueurs, nuts, and spices were arranged in a rainbow of temptation. More adult fare, a little kick in your cookie, a sweet afterthought to the drink in your hand.

Gail grabbed one of the bottles and titled it toward her mixing bowl, thinking
why not?
She hadn’t had guests in some time, unless you counted her visits from Gus or her chats with the girls down the hall. Or her recent conversations with that nice man Sam.

He was an interesting one. Smart, and handsome—looked his age, not like a man trying to recapture his lost youth. And the saddest eyes she’d ever seen on a man. It almost brought a tear to her eye, thinking about the way that man talked about his wife.

“He’s a keeper,” she said, knowing Simone would have agreed with her. “Maybe I shouldn’t have stirred him up like that, getting him poking around, but I couldn’t help myself. Besides, I think it’ll be good for him.”

Simone made no comment.

“Fella like that needs to be out in the world meeting people.” She bent down and cracked the over open a fraction of an inch.
Perfect
. “Like that nice girl Jill; such a lovely voice. I think it’s good they met—good for everyone.”

Simone didn’t disagree.

Gail slid the tray out and smiled. Thirty perfect circles stood in formation, awaiting their deployment on the cooling tray. Then came the icing. “Maybe red this time, just for fun.”

While the last batch cooled, Gail returned to her mixing, felt the soothing motion of her arm churning the batter. The honest feel of the wooden spoon in her hand. She loved cookies. Who cared if they weren’t good for your body—they were good for the soul. She dipped a finger into the batter and brought it to her lips, smiled at the decadence of it.

Some people took all the joy out of life just trying to survive. The way Gail saw it, people like that got old long before she ever did, in spirit if not in body. Why all the fuss? Everybody died.

She thought about Simone, a cat who helped fill the void left by her dearly beloved, dead these long years. Her sweet Gus, still a spring chicken in his own eyes but catching up to her in aches and pains. That wonderful woman Marie, taken so young from that nice policeman. And even that dead bastard Ed. Almost made her want to get religion, just so he could burn in whatever circle of Hell was reserved for landlords.

Everybody died, but how many lived without regret? That was Gail’s idea of heaven.

She took another scoop of batter and licked it off her bony finger. Life could be sweet if you just made it that way. She turned to the spot on the counter where Simone used to sit, imagined the cat giving her a disapproving look, waiting impatiently for its turn.

“Give me a break, you old sourpuss,” said Gail as she treated herself to another lick. “I just want to have some fun before I die.”

Chapter Sixty-five

On the chance he was going to be dead tomorrow, Sam decided to spend at least some of the time he had left on Earth looking at naked women.

By all rights, he should have been asleep. He was exhausted. Listening to Larry and Jerome was almost as grueling in its own way as grappling with Zorro’s band of thugs. The brothers had left an hour ago and it was late, too late to walk down the hall and wake Jill. Late enough that Sam should be getting some rest while he could—sleep deprivation wasn’t going to help keep him on his game. But the coffee had kicked in and Sam was restless. Too much caffeine and adrenaline for one day.

The first thing he did was open a kitchen drawer and pull out a pad and pen, which he used to take notes while he listened to Oliver’s message a second time. Then he played it again, scribbling questions to himself. He drank more coffee until the pot was empty, cursed himself, then switched to beer, hoping the two would cancel each other out.

Then he went into the spare bedroom where he kept his files and pulled open drawers until he found his old phone list. He found Oliver’s home number, dialed, and let it ring until it woke Oliver up. For some reason Sam didn’t think Oliver slept like normal people or, if he did, Sam assumed it would be during the day inside a coffin.

Sam grilled Oliver for twenty minutes before thanking him and hanging up. Instead of feeling smarter, Sam only felt like asking more questions, but even Oliver had his limits. Part of the problem was that Ed’s accelerated descent from the roof had taken place a lifetime ago, as far as Sam was concerned. With his own life in jeopardy, Sam was having trouble focusing.

Sam fired up what he still thought of as Marie’s computer. While he waited for the operating system to launch, he returned to the kitchen for another beer. He opened an overhead cabinet and was delighted to find the bag of pretzels he’d hoped was there. Tearing it open, he returned to the office and sat in front of the computer. He still felt wide awake.

Jill hadn’t exaggerated. The girls’ website was intoxicating, beginning with the homepage. Some models and actresses looked great on film but surprisingly average or even awkward in person—but the camera loved them and made them more beautiful on film than in life. Given how spectacular Shayla and Tamara were in person, Sam couldn’t imagine them looking any better, but the camera loved them, too. Maybe more than anyone.

The fact that they were often topless or naked in most of the photos didn’t hurt, either. Sam felt himself stir and experienced a pang of guilt over Jill, but he reminded himself she had insisted he visit the site. She had a reason to be proud.

The navigation from one section of the site to another was ingenious, involving a click of the mouse or a scrolling move across some erogenous zone of the girls’ anatomy. And since the cursor appeared as a hand icon, it only heightened the interactivity of the site. But the site had a sense of humor. The copy was irreverent, and most of the images were more playful than pornographic, the girls looking at the camera with a wink and a nod, letting their guests enjoy the view but making it clear they were in on the joke.

Like a blog or visual diary, Shayla and Tamara had written short entries for each day or night, searchable by date, each accompanied by a series of digital photos and usually a short video. Yesterday’s entry had a series with Tamara painting her nails, topless, her long black hair barely concealing her breasts. The day before revealed Shalya doing yoga on the rug wearing something that could pass for a thong if it were just a little bigger.

Sam clicked through all the sections, then randomly jumped around the archives. He noticed the site was topical, playing off current events. A week ago the girls took advantage of the World Poker Tour to have their own game of cards. While the tournament played on the TV next to the big bed, both girls sat half-dressed, knees touching, cards in their hands. A big pile of clothes suggested they were playing a game of strip poker. The blue orbs of Shayla’s hair made a stunning contrast to the pink bedspread. Sam wondered if Jill consulted them on their wardrobe in addition to the art direction of the site.

Every time Sam clicked to watch a video, he was sent to a screen that asked for a password and invited him to enter his credit card if he wanted to join the site. He found himself visualizing his wallet on the kitchen counter and decided it was time for one last beer. He imagined anyone who visited the site more than once would succumb to temptation. After seeing some of the free photos, thirty bucks a month for hi-resolution video didn’t seem so steep. He shook his head as he ran the math behind the site one more time. Even with only a few thousand members, those girls would have no trouble making the rent.

Sam shut down the computer and returned to the kitchen, wondering how many times he was going to walk back and forth between the two rooms before he felt tired. His pulse had quickened, but he couldn’t tell if it was from all the walking or the naked pictures. Either way, he was getting old.

He dropped the half-eaten bag of pretzels on the counter, where Gail’s cookies sang a siren song from inside their Ziploc. Somehow cookies and beer didn’t sound too appealing, so Sam grabbed another handful of pretzels. While he stood munching, he thought about Gail’s colorful descriptions and took the cookies out of the bag, one by one, and arranged them carefully on the counter. He moved one forward and another to the side, changing the pattern the way a quarterback in a scratch football game might move sticks and rocks while explaining a play to his teammates.

Sam chose a blood-red cookie with a cherry center for Zorro. He set that alongside two smaller cookies sprinkled with rock salt meant to represent Larry and Jerome. Shayla and Tamara were matching vanilla cookies dipped in chocolate, which looked sweet and decadent at the same time. Gus was a rich brown cookie with nuts. Danny got pink frosting. Gail became one of her almond cookies, and Sam gave himself a role as a macaroon. Jill was a Madeleine, classic, delicious, with the perfect contours of an Art Deco sculpture. Walter, sadly, was the one cookie that had broken into pieces, pulverized so thoroughly that it was impossible to tell what kind of cookie Walter had been.

Sam drank another beer and moved the cookies across his counter in a hypoglycemic ballet set to a tune that he couldn’t quite place. He stared at the cherry cookie and hummed, trying to find the melody, seemingly unperturbed, until he abruptly smashed his right hand onto the counter and crushed Zorro’s cookie into so many pieces that not only the king’s horses but even the king’s men were shit out of luck.

Sam took a deep breath and brushed crumbs off his hands into the sink. He suddenly felt exhausted, but he knew sleep wouldn’t come, not yet.

Time to get your affairs in order.

Sam took the pad and began writing, standing at the kitchen counter, pausing every now and then to collect his thoughts. He finished his beer before he finished writing. When he was done, he scrounged around for an envelope and found one in his junk drawer. He wrote a short note on the back and laid the letter in plain view next to the coffee pot.

Sam stepped around the counter and over to the living room, where he looked out the window for a long time. He looked for patterns in the stars but couldn’t find any.

Finally, he moved in front of the mantle and talked to Marie for almost an hour, just to hear the sound of her voice inside his head. They talked about everything and nothing, and in the end it calmed Sam enough that he was able to sit down and relax in one of the big, comfortable chairs. He kept talking but after a few minutes started to mumble, and soon the echoes of Marie’s voice had faded away.

Sam closed his eyes and slept like a dead man.